Neither of my grandmothers could knit, let alone cook, sew or do anything domestic. Considering that both were born in the mid-1890s, they rose above the status quo and had careers--a businesswoman and a teacher.

Grandma tried to knit for the war effort in the 1940s, using Red Cross yarn and some kind of balaclava pattern on dps. It was a disaster. However, she was my heroine and the only person who I'd ever let call me "Dolly".

my paternal grandmother was your basic Norman Rockwell garden variety knitter...glasses on a string, needlepoint footstool, kleenex in the sleeve...you get the idea

I remember gowing up, many different objects she made for us, but the one that I remember best is a matching crew neck sweater/mitten set of turquious/teal blue that had a "knit with love by grandmother" name tage sewen into the collar. It was soft and warm and fuzzy, like the fur of a puppy.

Years later, moving out of my parents house, my mother mentioned that she regretted not holding on to the stuff we grew out of, it would have been "neat" to hand it down to the grandchildren...

i still have the quilt my grandmother made for my oldest daughter when she was born. considering alyse just turned 21, i think i'm doing well. i will hang on to it til the first grandchild is born, and just ask that it be passed around to all the grandchildren. all my kids got to use it (sporadically, but they did) and i think grandma would love that her love was wrapping around great greats.

and yes, you need to put that on a t-shirt. i would most definitely buy that (i've been sending the links to all your shirts you've been posting to my fiance for christmas hints)

I ***LOVE*** your cartoons!!! Why on god's wooly earth aren't you doing a strip! No, not that kind of strip, no, agggghhh!!! Okay, seriously you should be doing a comic strip for one of the knitting rags. Preferably Interweave or Vogue since I only read those two.

I went to a baby shower last night and one of the gifts from the mother of the mother-to-be was a knit blanket. Before my friend had the thing out of its box, her mother put her hand to her head in that woeful sort of stance and said, "That's the ONLY thing I ever knit. I hated every minute of it, but that's the blanket you came home from the hospital in. Look, I can see a hole in it from way over here. Well, there you go." Of course everyone thought this was charming (except me who thought it odd that anyone would dislike knitting, but I kept that feeling of shock and horror to myself).

The thing that leaves me gobsmacked after reading Sister Sue's story is that someone would make something for and give it to someone, while exclaiming in high drama about how they hated making it and pointing out the errors. How does the recipient respond to that with grace and generosity? "Gee...thanks...how wonderful to receive something from somebody that they hated making and that has holes in it...."

My Baci was a tiny fierce Polish lady who could knit and crochet the pants off nearly everyone I know. Sorry, guys.I begged her to teach me to crochet, but she said, you can't crochet, you're left-handed. Itll be all...twisted.Hmph.I taught myself. From a book.Now I get paid to crochet.

Like Ted, I'm apalled at Sister Sue's story. What a yucky thing to receive when it could have been so charming if something else had been said. My grandma was the only other member of my family who enjoyed knitting. I'm sure she'd understand about the scrunched up UFOs in a way that no one else can.

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